Made two meatloaves today. One with ground turkey & one with beef. I used oatmeal in the turkey one in place of cracker crumbs. Was skeptical on the oatmeal thing but you couldn't even tell. Was pretty good.

Saute a diced spanish onion, diced green bell pepper, about 4 cloves of garlic diced. While you're chopping steep 3 dried dej arbo and 2 dried guajillo chilis in a cup of hot beer (I used Stone's smoked porter). When they're tender, blend it for a bit until smooth and add to the veggies when they get cooked down pretty good. Add 2 14.5 ounce cans of diced tomatoes and a can of diced green chilis. I also added about a cup of water because I knew I wanted to let this cook for a very, very long time.

While the veggies and what not are cooking, I cubed up just over a pound of sirloin steak and let it sit with a dry rub on it (dry rub listed below), cooked up 4 slices of bacon that I thought about putting in the chili, but put them in my corn bread instead, used some of the bacon grease to cook the steak in it for a bit to get some color then into the pool and also cubed up 2 links of chorizo which got browned up and also put into the pool. I let it simmer for about 3 to 4 hours until it cooked down and got nice and thick. Made some corn bread to go with it and topped it with a bit of cheddar cheese. Delicious.

Huy Fong makes three main varieties of 'Asian' hot sauces. The guy who founded the company is a Vietnamese immigrant to the U.S., and the condiments are a mish-mash of southeast Asian influences.

- Sriracha, which is a puree of chiles, garlic, vinegar, sugar, salt (Thai/Vietnamese)

- Chili-Garlic Sauce, which is basically Sriracha that hasn't been pureed and has a lot more garlic (Vietnamese)

- Sambal Oelek, which is chunky mash of chilis and their seeds with few other flavor additions (Indonesian/Malaysian)

They are all delicious, and I have jars of all three both at home and at the office. Sriracha is the workhorse condiment, going on nearly everything I eat when I'm at the office. I tend to prefer sambal as my go-to condiment when I'm eating something that's out and out delicious on its own and I just want to up the heat. Chili-garlic sauce I usually reserve for a dipping sauce for the meat products in a bowl of phở.

Interstingly, "Huy Fong" was the name of the barge the food company's founder came to America aboard. And the product is made here in southern California, from chilis that are all grown in L.A. and the counties immediately to the north. So it's very much a point of local pride how popular Huy Fong - and particularly Sriracha - have become.

I also made ribs last weekend, which I will be eating all week. Three pounds of boneless country-style pork ribs (which aren’t really ribs, but rather shoulder cuts) with a Memphis-style rub indirect grilled for an hour and a half in the constant presence of pecan smoke. And unlike tif’s frou-frou presentation, mine will be properly served with blackeye peas (with salt pork), collard greens, and cornbread.

Seriously dude—it’s barbecue. Some of the best Q in the world is served on sheets of wax paper.